"Follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly" : Kafka

Independence

Raman and Aamir stopped by a roadside thela (a type of open kiosk) to eat omelette after a heated argument on hypocrisy and Communism and how being a communist was as good as a hypocrite.

While they were savouring, a car stopped by and a man in mid-thirties with his son (‘round 8 years) came to eat up the last omelette. After eating the omelette, man was explaining to his son addition of numbers, who was too dim to get it.

“See Neelu…one omelette is for 23 rupees. We had two omelettes…..so we should pay 23+23=46 rupees.”

The Son gave an unsure nod. Raman and Aamir were watching the didactics carefully.

Father handed a 100 rupee note to Ramu, a school drop-out who aids his old master in running kiosk. Ramu quickly removed 54 rupees from his old, ragged money-bag and returned it to his customer.

It didn’t surprise the father. Obvious.

Aamir called Ramu and asked him pointing towards the sky, “Upar kya dikhta hain” (What do you see above)??

(Brother, I can see clouds. Clouds of three colours- white, blue and black. Blue ones are just like you, always troubled by the sun. Black ones; just like me which keep crying and white ones…everyone knows who they are but no one speaks about them. Go home early, brother. If these black clouds start pouring in, it’ll create troubles. They will cover the whole sky and then blue and white clouds will disappear).

That day won't be far away then....when you'll see all similar faces, all alike and just one colour : Red

His answer dumbfounded Aamir plus Raman.

Both had their own stringent and inflexible views on Communism as well as hypocrisy. They thought from two pair similar of eyes, yet very much differently.

After Ramu’s answer, they felt their opinions were nothing but very much alike.

“You think he knew everything??” asked Raman.

Aamir kept looking at a cycler pedalling a housewife with her mundane luggage.

(A wet eye, a shaken life is not enough,
The accusation of a hidden love is not enough,
With feet in chains, Let us go in public today.Pack up your belongings O Injured heart ones!
Let us go friends and get killed once again.)

There is a school going child named Chandrashekhar residing in slums of construction labour besides my hostel. One fine day, he came running towards me and asked for money to buy national flags, the reason being Independence Day. I proudly handed him a 10 rupees note as if I was fuelling some Che Guevara kinda revolution. Hapless me!

He caught hold of me today too. And as I was about to give money to fund his patriotism, there came his point-blank accusation, ‘Bhaiya, itne paise mat dena…pichle baar maine hostel ke gate pe bhi lagaya tha,lekin hostel ke logo ne haath paunchne kel iye flag use kiya..Is baar mai waha pe nahi lagaunga’. Embarrassingly, I dropped a five rupee coin in his hand and walked off as fast as I could.

Wait…did we seriously need so called historic, good-on-paper Right to Education Law, wherein crores of rupees have been siphoned off every year, before Right to MORAL ETHICS?? Hopelessly tainted officers stacked in bundles detracting money from naïve kids’ Mid-day meal schemes, SSA and textbooks on the very same holy land of altruistic Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule. The real bone of contention as they say is literacy. Agreed. But was there any education right when French novelist Jean Paul Sartre taught himself to read and write. RTE certainly has a brighter side too, making education accessible to interiors of Indian villages where children prefer school for the food they provide. Big shots eat, schools eat and finally if something at all is left, children too eat!

Don’t we need such an education which makes a child sad when the last bell is rung at the end of the day in the school??

‘Republic’ means a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them. Do we even stand near to the definition? Our situation is no different than a thinned out ‘Arab Spring’. Political leaders are like sub-atomic particles unfeignedly following Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: The very act of observing/judging them changes their observed properties (by changing properties I obviously refer to their degrading conscience which is directly proportional to their ‘experience ’) Hooch, black money, delusive assurances, fake voting, violence,pledges, lashing and back-lashing are some of the peculiar features of the world’s largest democracy. I still fail to understand why ‘voting in public elections’ isn’t our fundamental duty.

Economic liberalisation, yes we had it long back in early 90’s and we’re bigheadedly drifting towards neo-liberal policies too,opening up OMO’s. But really, are we ready?? Zeroing down the BPL boundary for 1.3 billion based on some representative surveys in a centrally air-conditioned cabin seems like a buttery accomplishment. Yes, our robust elephant is resilient than the fiery dragon when it comes to global meltdown, still why are there so many unfortunates struggling to get two square meals a day?? Textile traders voice against VAT, farmers against FDI..but what about those ignorant ones who don’t even know what day, what month it is..who are nascient about civilised society, forget about rights.

Don’t we need such an economy in which a middle-class mom freely enters a mall and no more dissuades her daughter by saying that the dress won’t look good on her after secretly seeing the price tag??

A reputed Maharatna firm comes to my college for recruitment. They ask my Biharifriend about national certificates in sports or cultural. He answers in negation.

Be it Naveen Jindal v/s Govt. of India on showing patriotism or Rabindranath Thakur mispronounced as ‘Tagore’ or the only newspaper of the country portraying hypocrisy by clinging to strict leftist views but charging people for its e-paper or curbing down ‘Freedom of expression’ so as to please the vote-banks, we have always shown laid-back attitude in tackling quandary.

I’m not some freedom fighter’s grandson trying to prove a point or flaunting my patriotism. I’m just another you. Yes, even I too gave 50 rupees to traffic police to close the matter, even I too copied in my exams to score higher than my potential and yes, even I too as an urchin stole money from my mumma’s purse to buy a Big-Babool and yes, even I too once raffishly opined: “Yeh desh ka kuch nahi hone wala !!”

Hold on, I’m not going to suggest some typical page-10 editorial stuff as solution to above mentioned situations/ problems. Just close your eyes, take a deep breath and temme how many times have you thought selflessly of others, be it your bf/gf,husband/wife,mom,dad,brother,sister, friends o someone else?? Affirmative. Okay, now temme have you ever thanked flipkart courier guy for bringing your book?? Negation. What the world needs is a bit of appreciation, affection, hope, initiative, respect and most of all, love! Carrying out our duties honestly along with a smooth transition from personal love to universal love is the key solution to everything be it corruption, literacy, poverty, leprosy and what not. And then you’ll start respecting individuals, states, nation, world and this whole fraternity.

If you can create a small difference in someone’s life, don’t forget it is the taking off of a nuclear fission wherein goodness spreads. India, or this beautiful world doesn’t need great scientists, engineers, athletes but we need good humans first who can then paint this earth and colour it with beautiful colours of Humanity and Glasnost.

This one line has made my life much more meaningful,” To be willing to march into Hell, For a heavenly cause”. (From ‘The Impossible Dream ‘by Man of La Mancha)

Think. Contemplate. Promise. Act. Spread. Share.

Remember the immortal words of Gandhiji: “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean ; if a few drops of ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

Really, one ounce of practice is worth twenty thousand tons of big talk!!